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Adriana felt as though someone was watching her; she couldn’t put her finger on where the gaze was coming from, but nonetheless the sensation of being watched—and even more, of being followed—stayed with her from the moment she had gotten onto the first train of her trek until the moment she sat down on the second one. It was not precisely a creepy feeling; she couldn’t sense any kind of malice from the source, or anything that raised more of a red flag in her mind than the pure sensation of being watched. I have a can of mace, and I have those silly self-defense classes. If that’s not enough to protect me, then I’m doomed. She was traveling to visit a cousin; Susannah, who lived in a town so small that the nearest airport was more than a hundred miles away, was having a difficult pregnancy with her third child, and Adriana had volunteered to take some of the pressure off of her by cooking and babysitting the older two children while Susannah worked.
A man sat down a few seats away from her on the train, and Adriana glanced at him curiously. He was tall, with a lean muscular build that seemed a little too perfect, clothed in the most nondescript outfit she could imagine: jeans that bore no particular brand, a tee shirt that just fit him without being either baggy or tight, and a pair of sunglasses. His skin seemed somehow strange in her cursory glance; it was somewhere between brown and gray, not sickly looking but not quite what she was used to seeing. His hair was thick, cut close to his skull, and an inky black that didn’t look exactly like it was natural to his skin tone. Adriana thought idly that he might have been the source of the sensation she was feeling; but he sat easily, not fidgeting or anything. He certainly didn’t look like the kind of man who would just grab her, try to attack her. In fact, somehow in spite of her sudden conviction that he had followed her—she thought she might have seen him in the corner of her eye on the last train—she didn’t have any sense of danger from the man.
She turned away, looking out through the window as the train pulled away from the station. This leg of her journey would be longer than the first; she had packed a lunch for herself along with the changes of clothes in her backpack. Adriana watched the scenery flow past her and considered taking her food out. She was more bored than hungry, she knew; but something about realizing that she was, in fact, being watched made her want to do something, just for the sake of activity.
It’s not being watched, she thought after a moment’s reflection. It’s like I’m being observed. She felt less as though some creepy guy was staring at her from behind dark sunglasses and more like the subject of some kind of anthropologist; or some kind of science experiment. Adriana couldn’t quite think of how she had arrived at that conclusion—how it was that she could decipher intent from a guy who hadn’t spoken to her, who she didn’t even actually know was watching her—but there it was.
Before Adriana could decide how she had arrived at the conclusion, her thoughts were interrupted by someone close by clearing their throat. She turned her head, and the man from before was standing in the aisle, his attention obviously on her. “I’m sorry if I have upset you,” the man said, “but I saw that you were traveling alone, and thought perhaps you wouldn’t mind company for a little while.” Adriana frowned slightly; the man had a strange, almost guttural accent—combined with an even stranger precision in his enunciation. Where in the world is he from? Up close, he was even taller than he had seemed; Adriana thought that if she stood, she would at best reach his chest.
“I guess that would be okay,” she said cautiously. Adriana worried at her lower lip, and somehow felt rather than saw the man’s gaze shift from her eyes to her mouth. There was something compelling about the man; in spite of her surprise, she still didn’t feel even a trace of danger from him. “Have a seat,” she suggested, pointing to the empty one next to her.
“Thank you very much,” the man said, sitting down. Adriana felt dwarfed by his size, and shifted instinctively closer to the window—but the man didn’t sprawl or try to invade her space. “Where are you headed?”
Adriana smiled in spite of herself, shrugging. “I’m going to visit a cousin who lives in the middle of nowhere,” she explained. “She’s having trouble with her third pregnancy and needs someone to lend a helping hand.”
“That is very kind of you,” the man replied. He paused, and Adriana intuited that he was mentally translating something—his accent and his speech told her that he was definitely foreign, though it was not an accent that she could place. “Oh! I almost forgot, I should ask your name.”
Adriana stifled a laugh at the odd syntax; he was definitely strange, but it was obvious that he was making an effort to speak well, to be polite. “I’m Adriana,” she said. “And you?”
The man’s lips curved in a slow smile. “I am Joran,” he told her with an odd kind of firmness. Adriana watched him, waiting for his explanation of where he was going, and why he was traveling there. He simply watched her from behind the dark glasses, and Adriana started to feel—for the first time—slightly uncomfortable as the silence stretched out.
“So, Joran—pleased to meet you. By the way, where are you headed?”
Joran shrugged. “The middle of nowhere, like you,” he said. “I am to perform research.”
“Oh? What kind of research?” Adriana glanced around the train compartment; there were only a few other people in the car with her, and she hoped that at one of the next stops, there would be more. If it turned out that this Joran was creepier than he seemed, she wanted to be able to make a getaway, or at least get someone else’s attention.
“Genetics research,” Joran said, that faint almost-smile curving his lips again. “Actually, I am recruiting volunteers—and I had thought that you would be a good candidate.”
Adriana felt her cheeks warming; that was one of the stranger come-ons she had ever received from a man in her life, and she wasn’t sure she liked it. “Oh really?” she asked. She struggled to keep her voice level.
“I have offended you,” Joran said, pulling away from her slightly. “I apologize. I did not mean to do so.” Adriana stared at him in confusion. “It is just that I became excited when I saw you, because I am supposed to recruit—if I have overstepped a social boundary…”
Adriana shook her head, licking her lips as she tried to work out what was happening to her. “Why don’t you tell me about this research,” she said slowly. “And why you think I would be such a good candidate?”
The smile returned to Joran’s face. “My fellow scientists and I are looking for healthy h—women, of childbearing age, to study genetic fertility.” Adriana felt her blush deepening and wasn’t quite sure why. “You look very healthy to me, and I estimate your age to be somewhere between twenty and thirty years?”
Adriana shrugged, still bemused by the man’s strange demeanor and words. “I’m twenty-four,” she admitted. “What—what exactly would this entail?” She frowned in thought.
“There are some tests that we would run; none of it would be painful. We are interested in the genetic diversity of humans.”
Something about the statement sounded an alarm in Adriana’s head, but she pushed it aside. He was clearly foreign; he was also—she thought wryly—very clearly a scientist. “How do I sign up?”
Joran’s shoulders moved in what might have been a shrug. “You would provide me with your contact details, and I would invite you to the laboratory I have set up. There are many of us, in many different locations around the planet; we are performing research independently, but all of our findings are combined in one final report.”
“And it won’t hurt?” Adriana confirmed.
Joran hesitated—as if not sure he understood the question—and then shook his head. “I promise you that it will not.”
Adriana glanced out through the window, considering. “As long as it won’t interfere with my life too much, then sure,” she said finally. It occurred to her to wonder just why she had agreed to the proposition so readily; but Adriana thought to herself that Joran seemed mostly harmless, and at the worst case, she could probably investigate in some way, to find out more about his research.
“I will leave you to your thoughts,” Joran said with another strange smile. “But I will ask you before you depart the train for your contact information.”
“Okay. Could you—do you think you could send me some references?”
“Any security you need.”
Adriana watched as the man stood and gave her a final smile before going back to his seat.